Steal the Demon: A Science-Fiction Novella by Robert Roth (free novels to read txt) 📕

the holo-display, including gloves, boots, and slender, integrated armor plating. Despite its stiff appearance, it was light and flexible. She accessed the suit menu in her P/N-interface and activated her helmet. It unfolded from within the collar, assembling itself around her head, then sealed itself to the suit with a slight hiss. She stood in total darkness for a moment until a projection of the external view appeared in front of her. She took another look in the mirror. She looked and felt like a total badass.

The rest of the suit menu was simple and straightforward. The suit was tested and armor-rated for small arms protection, including both beam and slug weapons. It had a built-in micro-generator for extra defensive and rad shielding. There was also a built-in air recycler and a connector for an external air tank. It was a comprehensive piece of gear, she had to admit, flexing an arm just to see how it felt to move it.

She reached for her work jacket and pulled the QED node out of its pocket. The node was the only piece of equipment that she hadn’t brought to Davida herself. She needed to test it, so she tapped the input screen on top. The familiar connection request came through, and she accepted it. Allowing a hacker into her P/N-interface flew in the face of pretty much all of her usual safety rules. But, then, so did breaking into a high-security facility and stealing a top-of-the-line ship. Plus, she had the feeling that if Paradox really wanted to hack her, she wouldn’t have a chance to say no.

Kimiko felt it when the connection was in place. It was a curious sensation, similar in some ways to when she interfaced with a ship’s systems, as her awareness expanded beyond its normal range and the whispers of alien thoughts murmured in the background. Beyond the edge of the interface lay something of immense power, somehow both enticing and unsettling, and like nothing she’d ever experienced while interfacing before. Was that Paradox? She flicked a finger upward to activate her visual interface, and system graphics painted themselves into the edges of her view. Then she selected her comm from the menu and opened a private channel.

“Paradox?”

“Kimiko,” came the reply, almost instantly, and as clear as if he were standing in the room with her. “You’re testing the node, of course.”

He’d been expecting her, it seemed. The hacker really had her orbit well-plotted. “I am. This feels like a high-bandwidth connection.”

“It is. I can access your full sensorium if you allow it. I could certainly help you navigate the shipyard facilities more easily, that way.” There was a pause. “Although you may not feel that is necessary.”

She supposed that it wasn’t too strange of a request. She’d had full-sense riders before, as a pilot, back when she was racing. Selling sense-access was one of the best ways to finance a racing team outside of corporate sponsorship, after all. “If it can help, I don’t see why not.” She returned to her visual menu and selected her interface presence, then gave Paradox full-sense permissions, allowing him to access everything that she saw, heard, and felt, along with whatever biometric data her suit collected. “How’s that?”

“Ah, you’ve tried on the suit. Will it be acceptable?”

She smiled. “It’s perfect. I honestly don’t know what to say.”

“It was easy for me to arrange, and you must have the right tools for the job.”

She looked herself over in the mirrors again. “I’ll be honest, Paradox. If you keep showering me with gifts like this, I just might sleep with you when this is over.”

Kimiko immediately regretted saying that, but Paradox laughed, and she could almost feel his amusement. He must’ve been using his neural link, too, she realized, and she was getting some sense bleed-through from it. “I want to make sure that you succeed, and hacking into Practical Utility’s sales system to create a false order was child’s play.”

While that could’ve been another boast, Kimiko doubted it. Paradox sounded sincere enough when he said it. She wasn’t used to strangers being this generous to her without some sort of hidden motive. But Paradox’s motives weren’t hidden. He’d been very upfront about what he wanted, and why he wanted it. And all the demonstrations of his hacking prowess–like the shuttle ticket to Davida, and then the custom flight suit–had gone a long way to boost his credibility.

Kimiko had a sudden flash of memory, recalling the stories she’d been told as a child about kami–spirit entities that were another ancient belief of her ancestral people. Kami were a focus of Shinto and could be represented in the natural world by objects, animals, or even people. They could be helpful when appealed to and appeased. But they could also be mischievous and malevolent when angered. Kimiko wasn’t a Shinto practitioner, and wouldn’t even know where to find a temple. But she still remembered hearing about it from her elders. And whether she believed in kami or not didn’t matter. Paradox certainly wasn’t the manifestation of an ancient spirit. Still, it was undoubtedly in her best interest to appease him by taking the new suit, if only to increase the chances for her operation’s success.

“You should run the system scan,” Paradox suggested, “although you’ll find that no adjustments will be necessary. But it will make the sales clerk happy.”

She laughed, then stuffed the QED node back into the pocket of her High Orbit Mechanical jacket. “I’m ready for the system scan,” she said aloud. Her helmet automatically transmitted her voice to an external speaker.

“Activating fitting scan,” said a synthesized voice that her helmet mic picked up and relayed to the internal speakers. “Please remain still.” The fitting room lighting dimmed, and then a set of low-powered pin beams painted a grid across her body. After a few moments, the grid disappeared, and the lighting returned to full power. “Scan complete. No adjustments are required.”

Just then, there was a discrete knock on the door.